Clarkesworld Magazine Issue 100

by Aliette de Bodard

  It doesn’t matter. It’s just a place—one with a little personal significance to her—but nothing she can’t weather. She has been to so many places, all over the Empire; and this is just one more.

  Just one more.

  The Embroidered Guard is young, and callow; and not unkind. He boards her at the First Planet, as specified—she’s so busy steeling herself that she forgets to greet him, but he doesn’t appear to notice this.

  She’s met him before, at the funeral: the one who apologetically approached Quang Tu; who let him know Mother’s mem-implants wouldn’t pass to him.

  Of course.

  She finds refuge in protocol: it’s not her role to offer conversation to her passengers, especially not those of high rank or in imperial service, who would think it presumption. So she doesn’t speak; and he keeps busy in his cabin, reading reports and watching vids, the way other passengers do.

  Just before they emerge from deep spaces, she pauses; as if it would make a difference—as if there were a demon waiting for her; or perhaps something far older and far more terrible; something that will shatter her composure past any hope of recovery.

  What are you afraid of? A voice asks within her—she isn’t sure if it’s Mother or The Dream of Millet, and she isn’t sure of what answer she’d give, either.

  The station isn’t what she expected. It’s a skeleton; a work in progress; a mass of cables and metal beams with bots crawling all over it; and the living quarters at the center, dwarfed by the incomplete structure. Almost deceptively ordinary; and yet it meant so much to Mother. Her vision for the future of the Empire; and neither Quang Tu nor The Tiger in the Banyan having a place within.

  And yet . . . and yet, the station has heft. It has meaning—that of a painting half-done; of a poem stopped mid-verse—of a spear-thrust stopped a handspan before it penetrates the heart. It begs—demands—to be finished.

  The Embroidered Guard speaks, then. “I have business onboard. Wait for me, will you?”

  It is a courtesy to ask; since she would wait, in any case. But he surprises her by looking back, as he disembarks. “Ship?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m sorry for your loss.” His voice is toneless.

  “Don’t be,” The Tiger in the Banyan says.

  He smiles then; a bare upturning of the lips. “I could give you the platitudes about your mother living on in her work, if I thought that would change something for her.”

  The Tiger in the Banyan doesn’t say anything, for a while. She watches the station below her; listens to the faint drift of radio communications—scientists calling other scientists; reporting successes and failures and the ten thousand little things that make a project of this magnitude. Mother’s vision; Mother’s work—people call it her life work, but of course she and Quang Tu are also Mother’s life work, in a different way. And she understands, then, why The Dream of Millet sent her there.

  “It meant something to her,” she says, finally. “I don’t think she’d have begrudged its completion.”

  He hesitates. Then, coming back inside the ship—and looking upwards, straight where the heartroom would be—his gaze level, driven by an emotion she can’t read: “They’ll finish it. The new variety of rice they’ve found—the environment will have to be strictly controlled to prevent it from dying of cold, but . . . ” He takes a deep, trembling breath. “There’ll be stations like this all over the Empire—and it’s all thanks to your mother. “

  “Of course,” The Tiger in the Banyan says. And the only words that come to her as the ones Mother spoke, once. “Thank you, child. You did well.”

  She watches him leave; and thinks of Mother’s smile. Of Mother’s work; and of the things that happened between the work; the songs and the smiles and the stolen moments, all arrayed within her with the clarity and resilience of diamond. She thinks of the memories she carries within her—that she will carry within her for the centuries to come.

  The Embroidered Guard was trying to apologize, for the mem-implants; for the inheritance neither she nor Quang Tu will ever have. Telling her it had all been worth it, in the end; that their sacrifice hadn’t been in vain.

  But the truth is, it doesn’t matter. It mattered to Quang Tu; but she’s not her brother. She’s not bound by anger or rancor; and she doesn’t grieve as he does.

  What matters is this: she holds all of her memories of Mother; and Mother is here now, with her—forever unchanged, forever graceful and tireless; forever flying among the stars.

  About the Author

  Aliette de Bodard lives and writes in Paris, where she has a day job as a System Engineer. In her spare time, she writes fiction: her Xuya series of Asian-dominated SF have won her two Nebula Awards, a Locus Award and a British Science Fiction Association Award. Her novel House of Shattered Wings–featuring Fallen angels, Vietnamese immortals and magical influence wars in a post-apocalyptic Paris–is forthcoming from Gollancz in August 2015.

  A Universal Elegy

  Tang Fei

  I love you, stranger, but not because the world is hurting me.

  Before my love froze, it once flew.

  —The Elegy of Alia

  Alia Calendar 6th month, 87th year

  Brother, it’s not until my tongue stumbles over these two syllables that I realize how long it’s been since we last talked. Julian and I kept moving, kept living where even the heating system was a problem. A satellite communication system that could reach Mercury was beyond my wildest hopes. Sorry that I haven’t contacted you in so long.

  Actually, I could have run to a public communication kiosk. Sending you a written message would have cost only several sou, but Julian didn’t like it when I did that. He thought it was a waste of money. We both knew, though, that this was just one of the ways he punished me.

  Julian, my now former lover, had at some point suddenly become a nightmare. He tormented me, ridiculed me, in every way he could. He’s like all the others. His shifting gaze, the curl of his lips, the way his nose blushed, even the sound of his footsteps were filled with a meticulous indifference. He laughed at me, saying that I was mad. Gradually, I started to believe it. The world grew hazy. It lost its contours and weight. I sunk into thick, black, yet glistening agony. When I looked up at the stars, I saw a sky filled with flowing fire, dancing and spinning in a daze.

  I was always crying. Once, Julian said in front of me to his research institute colleagues that he wanted to conduct research in genetic ethology using me as a specimen. Of course, he was drunk when he said that. He was always drunk, just like I was always crying.

  I can say these things to you, not just because I’ve left the nightmare that was Julian—yes, we’ve broken up—but especially because you’re the only person in the universe who can understand me. We came from the same fertilized egg. We have the same DNA. Even though radiation from Cygnus A methylated some of your genes, you can still understand me, a sufferer of an inhibitory neuron blockage disorder.

  It’s done, brother. The all of the suffering is done. I’m fine now. I’ve never been finer. In six hours, I’m going to leave this planet together with Hull. He’s a good man. Although we’ve only known each other fifteen days, we already understand each other. How do I describe the merging of souls that happens between two strangers? Such a mysterious stirring of emotions. I can’t put it into words. It’s like how the sound waves from two different kinds of musical instruments resonate together harmoniously. Forgive me for such a clunky analogy, brother. All you need to know is that I’ve fallen in love with a stranger who happens to love me. More importantly, he completely understands me and accepts me.

  Six hours from now, fire will rush out of our rocket and we’ll travel to the other side of the universe, to Dieresis. That’s where he was born. Hull promised me that there I’ll get the respect that I deserved but never got on Earth. There, no one will think of me as being sick in the head. Like him, they’ll understand and respect me, even appreciate me.

 
Brother, I love him. It’s absolutely not because the world keeps hurting me.

  Alia Calendar 6th month, 89th year

  Time flies by so fast. Sorry that I’ve gone so long without mailing you again. But, brother, in this vast universe, do people have to rely on such obsolete methods to reach out to each other? Hull told me that signals the brain sends travel farther than we think. During the countless years of a endless trek, a person’s train of thought will enter the mind of someone else on another planet. Isn’t that amazing?

  I want to tell you about Hull. Don’t worry, brother. I know my last letter made you think that I’ve committed yet another thoughtless mistake. Indeed, I have to admit that leaving Earth was definitely a somewhat hasty act. You know that’s why I sent you that last letter.

  Hull is a Dieresian. He’s 1.8 meters tall, 72 kilograms, black hair, brown eyes. He looks like a handsome Caucasian and speaks Earth languages really well. Our conversations are fluent and joyful. He’s more like my kind than any Earth person.

  His every subtle detail, no matter how difficult to check, is perfect. His pupils dilate at the just right times. His skin suffuses the air with a unique perfume. The rate his eyelashes quiver, the flaring of his nostrils, the unique path his fingertips glide over my skin steep me in the warm current of his love. I respond in the same detailed, satisfying way. We echo each other. The way we express our love is something that humans have never experienced and can never understand.

  Our love unfolded on an even more profound layer of spirituality. Cautious and reverent at first, it gradually transformed into something frenzied and wild until, finally, I realized that, all along, Hull had been guiding me, consciously training me. Through constant, ever deeper, ever more meticulous interactions, like how our ancestors sliced ever thinner slices of graphite until they finally sheared off a sheet of graphene, my already keen powers of perception and expression improved.

  Of course, coins aren’t just carried and spent. After all, Hull comes from outside the Milky Way. He has his quirks. For example, taking baths. For the first year of our flight, Hull never took a bath. One day, he suddenly announced he wanted to take one. By then, I was already used to his body odor and, moreover, I believed he had never taken a bath in his entire life. He locked himself in the bathroom for three days. To reassure me, he had meaningful conversations with me through the door that separated us. Even so, I was still distracted whenever I did anything else. Unbearable fantasies of what must have been happening behind the door ran wild through my mind.

  Afterwards, he told me that everyone on his planet takes this long to clean their body and waits this long in between. I asked him if I had to do the same. As he laughed, he comforted me, saying that they respected everyone’s habits and customs. I don’t know whether all Dieresians are like him. He obstinately refuses to cut his hair or nails. However, even if they are, I can accept that.

  Brother, your letter mentioned how worried you were. You said that you tried everything but couldn’t find anything about Dieresians. Everything about them seems to be a mystery. You were afraid that I’d fallen into another trap, just like before.

  You’ll know one way or the other soon enough. Our ship is about to reach Dieresis.

  No, it’ll be different this time. No matter whether that’s for better or worse.

  Alia Calendar 6th month, 89th year

  I’m sorry about the length of my letter. I hope your wife Jacqueline doesn’t glare at how much this space mail costs. But, brother, I can’t wait to tell you what happened after I reached Dieresis.

  After we disembarked, we immediately took the high-speed rail across the central axis of the city. This is Hull’s hometown. I’ve fantasized about this mystical place so many times. In reality, it’s more amazing than even my wildest fantasies. I’m sitting in an ancient form of transport that no longer exists on Earth. Streetscapes flash by on both sides. It’s as though I’ve sunk into a contemporary city of the 21st century. Simple geometric forms pile layer by layer one on top of another. Glass facades are flooded with a metallic radiance from their sun, a rust-red star, the only sign that I’ve gone to outer space.

  The train passes through the forest of tall buildings that is the business district then enter a residential district of gabled Baroque-style brick buildings. Green, clawed vines of wisteria, billowing in the occasional busts of wind, climb and fill every wall. Actually, they’re creatures that imitate wisteria. Sharp, slender claws stretch from their bodies. Suckers on their abdomens glue them to the walls. Hull told me this and when he saw my eyes, he added, smiling, that these not-wisteria vines were completely harmless.

  I could feel my pupils dilate. We looked at each other and laughed.

  Hull’s house is not more than a few steps from the train station. It’s decorated in the style of a 21st century Earth culture. Hull had obviously not put much thought into it. I didn’t understand how anyone so perceptive and intelligent could bear such out-dated decor.

  Hull shrugged. “My darling, it’s purely what you perceive through your senses, nothing to do with which era.”

  He pitied me, but tried his best to hide that. Brushing aside my bangs, he looked into my eyes. Silently, we held each other in our arms.

  Hull’s right. The longer I stay here, the more I can sense the current that runs under the ordinary things. Flowing in that current, they grow translucent, like jellyfish. Subtle aesthetic senses of all kinds follow the current-like tendrils, undulating slight in its gentle ripples.

  Living on Dieresis isn’t any different from living on the space ship. We spend most of the day either perceiving each other or loving each other. In other words, we train my powers of perception. Hull explained that once the sensory neurons all over my body are trained, they can be further developed to become even more powerful information processing units. My body isn’t sick like Earth doctors insist. Rather, it has stronger and denser sensory neurons than ordinary humans.

  “When you’re that perceptive, you’ll be even more like us.” He smiled at me.

  Immediately, I was steeped in our shared happiness. Already, I could practically feel the waves of joy, their amplitude growing from the constructive interference of our mutual, unspoken mental synchronicity.

  Brother, I can’t wait to become a Dieresian, can’t wait to get rid of my identity as a mentally ill human, can’t wait to love Hull. Here, everything fits. I’ve returned to my true home. I’ve roamed away for too long.

  You think we’re irresponsible, caring nothing about survival to wallowing in metaphysical questions, right? Don’t worry, brother. Although Dieresis looks like it hasn’t developed past our stone age, their technology has long developed to our standards. Tending our miniature farm for two hours a day supplies us enough food.

  I don’t know whether other Dieresians also live Hull’s sort of simple, frugal but fulfilling life. That said, it’s weird that I’ve been here so long now and Hull has never once taken me outside. He, himself, also rarely leaves this house. What is the outside world like? Is our mental synchronicity and happiness common on this planet?

  Alia Calendar 7th month, 89th year

  Who are we? From the beginning of time, no species has ever understood itself. Even while a species rushes to invade and exploit other worlds, it still doesn’t know what it is. Don’t worry, brother. If I told you that I sympathize deeply with those of my petty, greedy race, would you worry even more? Your sister, who has been arrogantly tormented by mental illness for years, hasn’t forgotten that she’s a part of the human race. That’s why I regret and limit our innate flaws.

  My body is changing. Brother, perhaps it has already changed.

  After I arrived, my appetite grew five-fold. I’ve fainted so many times because I always felt hungry. The weird thing was that I’d been losing weight. Hull urged me to eat more. I told him that my stomach can only hold so much.

  “You ought to consume nutrient materials with even more calories.” Hull handed me a bottle of
dark red pills then told me to take a pill before every meal.

  The pill was really effective. Hunger no longer vexed me. My mind was always filled with every kind of food. I could train with Hull to develop my powers of perception again. The world was constantly multiplying by dividing. A vase was no longer a vase. A smile was no longer a smile. A shaft of light was a gathering of countless subtle gradations of color. Lightwaves rippled like water through the air. Every time you stared at it, you felt even more the dust flying around. They lightly touched your skin like snowflakes, making you shudder for an instant. We lingered over ever tinier things, as though we saw them through millions of microscopes. What our senses gathered was gradually amplified nearly to infinity. This was a vastness that humanity had never conceived of setting foot in. It was another way of interpreting the universe. Humanity has never imagined this kind of world. Humanity has never created any words to describe it.

  The initial enthusiasm has faded. I’m starting to feel tired. Because I’m following Hull so closely, I have no choice but to condense my soul, lose a little of my spirit. Some of the following will be wrong in the details.

  Even if I keep up with Hull in perceiving deep and subtle layers, the difference between how keen Hull’s powers of perception are and mine is huge. I’d never recognized this before, not because the difference didn’t exist but because I couldn’t be aware of it before. But now, I’m aware. So that I can keep up with him, more often than not, he reduces his own keenness. Brother, it’s only here that I’m deeply aware that I’m human.

  Sometimes, I even think Hull is in love with a monkey. And I am that monkey.

  As for those red pills, can they evolve me from a monkey to a person?

  I hate those pills, brother. Even on a purely physical level, they make me uncomfortable. As my perception grows keener, the discomfort becomes even more acute. For more than a few days, given half a chance, I flushed those pills down the toilet. Hull knows, I think. He just won’t say so.